Datasheet

Book IX
Chapter 1
Those Pesky
Network Things
You Need to Know
Understanding Networks
671
very few applications allow you to share individual files simultaneously —
Word doesn’t let two people on two different machines edit the same
document at the same time, for example — sharing data on networked
machines is still much simpler. If you get Windows Meeting Space cranked
up (see Book IX, Chapter 2), sharing stuff among Vista PCs is like falling
off a log.
How a network networks
All you really need to know about networks you learned in kindergarten.
Here’s the lowdown:
✦ Good computers talk to each other over a network. If your computer is
on a network, it can play with other computers on the same network. If
your computer is not on a network, it can only sit in the corner and play
by itself.
✦ You can see all the computers on your network by looking at Mister
Rogers’ . . . uh, by choosing Start
➪Network.
✦ Every computer in a network has its own name — actually, it’s a number
called an
IP address — and all the names (er, numbers) are different.
That’s how computers keep track of each other.
✦ You can share stuff on your computer. You have two different ways to
share. The way you share depends on how the network — uh, kinder-
garten class — is organized:
• If you have a really mean teacher (called a
network administrator),
she decides what can be shared. When other kids want to borrow
your stuff, they usually have to ask the teacher. I don’t talk about this
kind of network very much because the teacher makes most of the
decisions. Details are in the next section of this chapter.
• On the other hand, if the kids are in charge of sharing, each kid can
share his stuff in one of two ways. He can put the stuff that he wants
to share in a special place that’s called Public (that’s a Public folder)
and tell Vista that he wants to share it (see Book II, Chapter 1), or he
can tell the computer to just go ahead and share the stuff (using a
shared folder, shared drive, or a shared printer).
✦ Your network can share with other networks, just like kids in your class
can share with kids in other classes. The Internet is the biggest class of
all. Yippie!
✦ Unfortunately, some creeps are in other classes, and they may want to
take things from you or share something that can hurt you. You have to
protect yourself.
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